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<title>Let Me Sleep Here by your_angle_of_music</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29064870">Let Me Sleep Here</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/your_angle_of_music/pseuds/your_angle_of_music'>your_angle_of_music</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcoholism implied, Angst, Canon Era, Canon-Era, Homelessness, M/M, Pining Grantaire, Pre-Canon, just lots of pining in general, oh and some mild innuendo, yeah just a bit of an ouch</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 08:41:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,048</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29064870</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/your_angle_of_music/pseuds/your_angle_of_music</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire has been staying at the Cafe Musain for a while now. One night, he's not alone.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Enjolras &amp; Grantaire (Les Misérables), Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Let Me Sleep Here</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Grantaire is a careless man. He is careless with his money, especially on those nights when he can feel his father’s fingerprints on every sou. He is careless with his life, especially on those nights when he rediscovers that absinthe kills quicker than air. He is careless with his canvases (when he can get them), especially on those nights when he dares to believe he is capable of making something beautiful. He is careless with his words, his sticky, staining words, which seem to flow from him like blood from a wound.</p><p>But the one thing that Grantaire is very, very careful about, though, is not getting caught sneaking into the Cafe Musain every night, just after one. </p><p>So it is to his utmost surprise, indeed, indignation, that when he enters the familiar back room, he finds Enjolras sitting at the table, writing by candlelight.</p><p>“Grantaire?” The other man looks up sharply from the array of papers in front of him. “What are you doing here at this hour?” His tone is neutral, but Grantaire still flinches at the reminder that he is the only member of Les Amis de l’ABC whom Enjolras addresses as <i>vous</i>.</p><p>He arranges his features into something resembling a smile. “Late night wanderings are good for the constitution, don’t you think? Besides, we shall all be ghosts someday, perhaps some of us sooner than others, and I do believe it serves me well to practice haunting familiar places at unfamiliar hours. And I am not so presumptuous as other ghosts. Hector’s ghost asked Aeneas to start a city, the King of Denmark’s ghost asked the Prince to end a life, but all I ask is that I be allowed to stay where a while, and bring a little chill to the air. Come now, am I such a great bother? Truly, I shall be as silent as the gra—”</p><p>“Grantaire.”</p><p>“What are you doing here, then?” <i>Tu</i>, of course. Always <i>tu</i>.</p><p>“I am drawing up plans to deliver food and clothes to the poor of Paris. If the government will not give aid, we will. Winter is coming on fast, and I’m calculating all the supplies we can afford, only, finances have been tight this month, and Combeferre is usually the man who does the numbers, but he has been ill all this week, and so very tired. Madame Hucheloup was generous enough to let me work here tonight, instead of our flat, so that I don’t wake Combeferre with my scribbling. ” Enjolras gestures towards the spare key lying on the table. “Oh, and I must remember to lock it up afterwards. It seems she never does.”</p><p>Before he can stop himself, Grantaire blurts out, “Please don’t.”</p><p>“Excuse me?” </p><p>“Don’t lock up tonight.” </p><p>“Why not?” </p><p>A pause. </p><p>“What, do you plan to pillage Madame Hucheloup’s wine cellar? Is harassing her waitstaff not enough for you?”</p><p>“No, I don’t,” says Grantaire, very quietly, and he sinks into the chair across from Enjolras.</p><p>“What’s going on, Grantaire?” </p><p>He means to say something funny, something false, something cruel. But as he looks into that face, those cheeks brushed by angel-wing lashes, that marble brow carved in shadow, that hair haloed in candlelight, all he can say is, “Let me sleep here.”</p><p>“What’s wrong with your own rooms?”</p><p>Grantaire stares at him, and Enjolras’ eyes widen. </p><p>“Oh. Oh! I am so, so sorry. Please forgive—”</p><p>“It’s fine,” Grantaire cuts in, too sharply. </p><p>Enjolras nods once, with uncharacteristic uncertainty. “How long?”</p><p>“More than long enough to decide that the streets of Paris are not worth the effort of saving, and that I am bored and tired and dying and dead and—”</p><p>“But can you not stay with Joly?” Enjolras persists doggedly. </p><p>“Ah, but to stay with Joly would be to stay with his Eagle of Meaux and their pretty little nightingale, too, and by God, you should hear their mating calls at night! No, I wouldn’t sleep a wink.” He doesn’t mention that last time he stayed with them, Joly tried to stop him from downing a bottle of brandy before breakfast and Musichietta smacked him when he did anyway.</p><p>“And so you sleep here,” says Enjolras.</p><p>“And so I sleep here,” says Grantaire, and then he has to look away from the strange gentleness in Enjolras’ eyes. Under the table, he squeezes his hands into fists that he wishes could smash the whole world.</p><p>“Grantaire?” </p><p>God, he hates himself for the warmth that blooms inside him when Enjolras says his name. He refuses to glance up at him.</p><p>“You…” Enjolras swallows audibly. “You may stay with Combeferre and me. If you please. Until you save enough to pay your rent again.”</p><p>Grantaire’s nails are digging so hard into his palms that he feels the slick wetness of blood upon them, mingling with the paint stains in the creases of his hands. He imagines it — a clean and ordered room, a mattress on a bone-cold floor, Enjolras’ soft late-night whisperings with Combeferre. Books and bullets and not a bottle in sight.</p><p> The winter sunlight on Enjolras’ face. The imprint of his hands on the door. The washbasin water sparkling like dew on his rose petal mouth. The space between a floor-banished mattress and a golden-haired man on a bed.</p><p>“No, Enjolras,” he says, in a voice that he prays isn’t shaking with the weight of the other man’s name. “There are so many things I want, but your lofty pity isn’t one of them.”</p><p>“As you wish,” says Enjolras. If he is offended, he doesn’t show it. He pushes his spread of papers into a neat stack with one hand. With the other, he slides the Cafe Musain key towards Grantaire.</p><p>Grantaire snatches it up wordlessly as Enjolras stands and tucks his documents into a satchel. In a handful of heartbeats, Enjolras has disappeared out the door.</p><p>The next morning, Madame Hucheloup finds Grantaire curled up in the back room, with an empty wine bottle from her own Cafe’s cellar clutched to his chest. When she wakes him with a kick to the ribs, he barely stirs, but manages a slappable smirk. </p><p>Gone is his sense of sneaking propriety. Let them see. Let them all see him. </p><p>Grantaire is a careless man, and there shall be no exceptions.</p>
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